Found this by happy chance in the library. It's a really different and poetic look at the Nativity from the point of view of the baby Jesus, who struggles to make sense of the scene around him with His now-imperfect human eyes. A fascinating conceit, beautiful and thoughtful.

Un cuento sobre la Natividad, específicamente sobre lo primero que ven los ojitos del bebé que acaba de nacer. Las imágenes son sencillas y todo gira alrededor de una estrella, luna y sol. Parece ser que las imágenes fueron primero y que Kurt escribió la historia con base a eso y le quedó bastante bien. Es tierna, simple y muy humana.

So good! The nativity story told from Jesus' POV, complete with his fuzzy newborn eyesight. I love how incarnational it is.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut, you would have loved Tumblr.

On a serious note: This was beautiful. Who would have known Vonnegut wrote a children's book and that it'd be so beautiful? I'd love to own this physically one day. It's so tender, but at the same time, the illustrations are so genius in tandem with the story beside it. His mind really works in such wonderful ways. This was gentle but so Vonnegut. Love love love.

A charming, creative retelling of the Christ child's birth. Chermayeff created a series of pictures before Vonnegut provided the story. As with his novels, Vonnegut's charm and humanity is on full display in this story for all ages.

This was one of my absolute favorite "Christmas" books as a child, long before any of it made any sense to me at all, and continued to be even as I was able to grasp a bit of what it was all about as an older kid. I recently rediscovered my (dusty, drawn-on) copy and was so thrilled to share it with MY kids, and surprised to find within myself an almost pre-verbal memory of each page, each color.

Anyway! Just an anecdotal counterpoint to the many reviews suggesting it is neither appropriate for or interesting to children. Though to be fair my kids are not particularly or especially enamored (YET?)... but neither do they dislike it or find it dull.

I loved and love this book.

My guy Kurt was real weird for this one

In 2021, I've been re-reading all the Vonnegut. He is my favorite author and when I had read Vonnegut when I was younger, this was not widely available, if at all. I had never heard of this until this year. I checked out the book for free from Hoopla and read it on my iPad. Random thoughts initiate:

1. I guess this is a children's book, though it talks about the king ordering the death of all newborn male children. That would have scared my kid. It took about 20 minutes to read, I guess. It was a kind of charming tale about Baby Jesus being born and what he saw, or thought he saw, during his first day of being alive on earth.

2. I would say this is for Vonnegut completionists only. Definitely not essential. The art was pretty simple and basic - nothing special.

I gave it two stars as the least essential Vonnegut yet. I like stories about Jesus and I thought it was kind of charming, but didn't have a great pay off or anything.

I had no idea Kurt Vonnegut, my all time favorite author, wrote a children's book until I spotted it on Amazon. Of course, I had to get it immediately, and thanks to my Kindle Unlimited I was reading it like thirty seconds later. This is a lovely little telling of the birth of Jesus, using the fact that newborns can't see clearly after birth to awesome effect.

Even more nifty is when you read the backstory and learn that the illustrator did the pictures first, simple pictures of colors moons suns and stars, and then Vonnegut filled in the story around the pictures.

I read a few reviews where people complain that Jesus is referred to as 'it', but the way this is done is that the Creator of the universe takes human form. The It is used to show that the Creator is neither/either male or female and something different than human in true form.

I really enjoyed it. Had I a small child, I would use this to introduce them to my favorite author in a My First Vonnegut kinda way.

Celebrated adult novelist Kurt Vonnegut turns to the story of the Nativity in this single children's story in his body of work, chronicling the experiences of the Creator of the Universe on the first day of its existence as a human being. Although Vonnegut never uses the names Jesus or Christ, he does use the names Joseph and Mary, and sets his story in the traditional stable, making it absolutely clear which narrative he is seeking to tell.

An extended meditation on the changing perceptions of the Creator, now that it is in human form, and must rely on the limited eyes of a newborn baby, Sun Moon Star was originally published in 1980, was out of print for many years, and then was reprinted in this new edition by Seven Stories Press in 2016. I am amused to see that some online reviews have criticized Ivan Chermayeff's illustrations, finding them ill-suited to Vonnegut's story, as the story was originally written by Vonnegut as a response to the artwork, which came first. Obviously, Vonnegut thought that this was just the story to pair with these visuals! Leaving that aside, I found the story itself quite thought-provoking, and really enjoyed this non-traditional take on the idea of a divine being coming into the world as a mortal one. Recommended to Kurt Vonnegut fans, and to anyone looking for a different take on the Nativity story.

nauczyłam się dzisiaj, że czytam dobre książki, ale totalnie nie umiem kupować dzieciom prezentów

Ugh. The story is a miracle (the birth of Christ) but this picture book rendering is very odd. If it wasn't Vonnegut and Chermayeff, I don't think it would have been published. The flap explains that the illustrations were completed and then they asked Vonnegut to create a story, and this backward experiment does not work. Not sure who the audience for this book would be as it has no kid appeal, doesn't really share the beauty of the Nativity, and offers nothing new to an ancient story.